378 



GREECE. 



GROTE, GEORGE. 



GREECE, a kingdom in Southeastern Eu- 

 rope. Present ruler, George I., born Decem- 

 ber 24, 1845, the third son of the King of 

 Denmark, elected " King of the Hellenes " in 

 1863 ; married in 1867 to Olga, daughter of the 

 Grand-duke Constantino of Russia; eldest son 

 of the King, Crown-Prince Constantino, Duke 

 of Sparta, born August 2, 1868. Area of 

 Greece, including the Ionian Islands, 19,353 

 square miles. The population, according to 

 the new census of 1870, was as follows : 



Notnarchies : 



Attica and Bceotia 136,804 



Eubcea 82,541 



Phthiotis and Phocis 108,421 



Acarnania and ^Etolia 121,693 



Achaia and Elis 1-19,501 



Arcadia , 181,740 



Laconia 105,851 



Messenia 130,417 



Argolis and Corinth 127,820 



Cyclades 123.299 



Corsyra (Corfu) 9(i,940 



Cephalonia 77,382 



Zante 44,557 



Land and marine soldinrs 13,735 



Sailors not in the country 7,133 



Total . . 1,457,894 



Although the Greek Government had given 

 positive assurances to the English envoy that 

 those of the Marathon assassins (see ANNUAL 

 CYCLOPAEDIA, for 1870) yet remaining alive 

 should receive punishment for their murder of 

 the English tourists, the Foreign Secretary 

 of England, on February 26th, informed the 

 Government that the investigation of the 

 massacres was insufficient, and demanded a 

 fresh inquiry, especially into the conduct of 

 the Greek officials previously acquitted of the 

 charges of complicity. The United States min- 

 ister, Mr. Tuckerman, on request of the King, 

 made an elaborate report on the subject of 

 brigandage in Greece, and, on March 20th, re- 

 ceived a note of thanks. The Chamber of 

 Deputies, May 24th, voted 10,000 lares to the 

 widow of Mr. Lloyd, who was killed by the 

 Marathon brigands. By strenuous efforts of 

 the Government, as officially stated, brigand- 

 age was nearly extirpated ; Turkey gave im- 

 portant assistance in arresting the brigands on 

 the frontier. During these investigations the 

 King, on June 10th, left Greece and went to 

 Denmark, his native country, via Trieste, 

 Vienna, and Berlin, and returned in Septem- 

 ber, accompanied by his mother, the Queen 

 of Denmark. 



The difficulties with England were settled, 

 but another quarrel arose with Turkey. The 

 appointment, on February 8th, of Blacqui Bey, 

 lately Turkish minister in Washington, as 

 ambassador of the Sublime Porte, produced a 

 painful sensation at Athens. His views of 

 the Eastern question generally were known as 

 anti-Greek. Some months after (June 14th), 

 Mr. Triconpis was appointed Greek minister 

 to Constantinople, and maintained, although 

 the Greek Government by previous inquiry 

 learned that the selection would not be agree- 

 able. The Sublime Porte refused to receive 



him, and asked that Mr. Rangabe, Greek min- 

 ister in "Washington, be appointed ambassador 

 to Constantinople. About the end of Juno 

 this difficulty was amicably arranged, and Mr. 

 Rangabe was recalled from Washington and 

 appointed minister to Constantinople. 



In November, the ministry suffered a defeat, 

 having appealed to the Chambers on a ques- 

 tion involving an approval of their policy, and 

 they thereupon tendered their resignation. 



GROTE, GEOEGE, D. C. L., F. R. S., an Eng- 

 lish historian and statesman, born at Clay 

 Hill, near Beckenham, Kent, England, No- 

 vember 17, 1794; died in London, June 18, 

 1871. He was of German stock, his grand- 

 father having been a German banker, and re- 

 ceived an education at the Charterhouse School 

 to qualify him for a financial career. But, 

 though not averse to the life of a banker, he 

 was determined to be something more, and, 

 applying himself with great assiduity, through- 

 out his term of service as a clerk in his father's 

 banking-house (which he had entered at six- 

 teen) to the classical studies commenced at 

 school, and to German literature, he became, 

 in time, profoundly versed not only in the 

 Greek language and literature, but a master 

 of the life and customs of the Greeks through- 

 out the golden age of their history. He first 

 formed the idea of writing a History of Greece 

 in 1823, when Mitford's " Greece " was just 

 completed, for he was even then fully capable 

 of discerning the great defects of that work. 

 Thenceforward every work which threw any 

 light upon the life of the Greeks was eagerly 

 devoured, and especially was he deeply inter- 

 ested in the researches of Wolf and Niebuhr. 

 Mr. Grote was apparently drawn away from 

 this fascinating study by the interest he felt 

 in Parliamentary reform a subject on which 

 he wrote two pamphlets, " Statement of the 

 Question of Parliamentary Reform," published 

 in 1821, and "Essentials of Parliamentary Re- 

 form," published in 1831 ; and he was still fur- 

 ther hindered by his election to Parliament as 

 one of the representatives for the city of Lon- 

 don. While a member of the House of Com- 

 mons, he attracted attention not only by his 

 speeches on the currency and other questions, 

 on which he could speak with peculiar author- 

 ity, but by his earnest and persistent though 

 unsuccessful advocacy of the ballot. We have 

 said that he was apparently drawn away from 

 his proposed history by this parliamentary 

 career, but really it was an important part of 

 his preparation for it, for in the knowledge of 

 men and political affairs, and of the sympathy 

 which was due to the struggles of the masses 

 for a participation in the government under 

 which they lived, thus gained, he had pene- 

 trated to a more perfect understanding of the 

 aspirations of the Greek democracy than any 

 man had previously attained. On his with- 

 drawal from public life in 1841, he again de- 

 voted himself to his labor of love; and in 1846 

 appeared the first two volumes of the celo- 



